Practice of Architecture. Containing the Five Orders of Architecture, and an Additional Column and Entablature . for the Use of Carpenters and Practical Men

4to. 60 engraved plates (plate 55 bound out-of-order). vii, [1], [9]-116 pp. Contemporary speckled sheep, red morocco spine label; spine darkened, foxing throughout as usual First edition of Asher Benjamin's fifth book, after his full embrace of the Greek Revival. The plates illustrate the Greek orders in close detail, as well as frontispieces, porticoes, door, windows, cornices, stairs and various elements of carpentry and construction, and concludes with a complete plan of a church. Plate VII illustrates an order of Benjamin's invention that does not conform to any existing classical model, reasoning that "more than one half of all the columns and entablatures erected in country situations, for either internal or external finishings, belong neither to the Grecian nor Roman system." PROVENANCE: Wm. C. Taber, New Bedford (bookseller's ticket); William Reese (book-label)REFERENCE: Hitchcock 135.